


we're barely clinging on

by evanescentdawn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Character Study, Gen, POV Original Character, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27457564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evanescentdawn/pseuds/evanescentdawn
Summary: It’s not easy living in an Zombie apocalypse, especially when there are a lot lives resting in your hands. And you want is your loved ones to live.Brenda was a medical student before the virius hit. She's not equipped for this, at all. Hell, who is? But she is all they got. And so, she keeps moving on.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Original Female Character(s), Original Female Character(s) & Original Male Character(s)
Kudos: 1





	we're barely clinging on

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [On Top of an Upside-Down World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26147812) by [remy (iamremy)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamremy/pseuds/remy). 



> To understand this, you need to read, the story linked above. Which is AMAZING and has EVERYTHING.

She doesn’t have anything against Sam. It’s simple. The wound doesn’t look good at all, it’s infected. And just not that—he’s too skinny. Malnourished. There’s a very low possibility he wouldn’t survive. And Dean wants to use up the last antibiotic they have on him.

He doesn’t listen to her rational reasons.

He narrows his eyes, when she tries to show any kind of protest, squaring his shoulder, all tense. His voice clip and dark as he says, “Yes?” Challenging her to disagree.

And she wants to, for a brief, brief moment—there’s anger. Sharp, boiling anger, the words are begging to get out. _No. I am not going to fucking get it. He’s going to die, it’s so clear—you can shove your words back up your fucking—_

“I’ll go and get it,” Brenda says, instead, biting the words down. “We don’t have IV tubing or cannulas, so I’ll have to use a syringe.”

“There’s only enough for one course, Dean.” She adds, reminding him.

Dean, of course, ignores it. He shifts his attention to Sam again. She had never really seen him like this before. So intensely focused on a person. He hadn’t been like this with a person before. Not even with Jo. Or...Ellen.

(She can kinda understand it. And doesn’t want to at all—it hits too close for home for her liking.)

In the end, Sam doesn’t die. Not yet. He’s getting his strength back, slowly. It’s a good thing. The antibiotics were not wasted up.

Brenda remembers, vaguely, of the time that she was a student before all this shit hit. Before the end of the world and Walkers. She had family, siblings. She too had a life.

They’re all gone now.

She _liked_ helping people, getting them back alive and seeing them getting stronger.

When she looks at Sam and how he’s laughing and fitting in and living, holding on Dean’s arm—there’s a part of her that hates so much. It’s unfair. So fucking unfair.

Why does—

Brenda shoved away the thought. It’s never done her any good to dwell on the past.

(She never stops though, it’s one of her problems.)

And then, Kyle happens. He trips and gets hurt and infected—that stupid, fucking _idiot_ —and there’s no antibiotics for him because Sam used it all up.

He’s going to die and Brenda can’t do a thing to save him.

She had to watch him die.

It’s an all too similar situation.

“It’s just a cut, Brenda.” Kyle says, carefree. “I’m sure, it’s fine.” Smiling up at her, and she hates how her heart jumps at the sight of it. She presses her lips together and doesn’t say anything, focusing on her cleaning and stitching up his wound.

Stupid, fucking _idiot_.

He doesn’t even know that he’s going to die. And Brenda can’t bring herself to say it. She tells them, _there’s a risk of an infection_ —when it’s painfully obvious. She leaves, tears prickling hot between her eyes, chest tight. _Why_.

She snarls kicking the stones beside her. _Why_.

It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair.

Brenda allows herself this moment, letting the tears follow before she rubs them away furiously and moves on to deal with the other people who need her attention. There’s always people who do.

She’s exhausted and furious and _done_ , when she comes out of the store and runs into Dean and Jo. They’re smiling. They’re _smiling_ and joking around when Kyle is _dying_.

When it’s all of this is _his_ fault _._ And Dean even has the gall to tell her how to do her work. It takes restraint and self-perseveration to keep herself from lashing out at him. She bites down her anger.

“I’m just—stressed.” She sighs, running a hand through her hair.

They, of course, don’t believe her.

Dean accuses her of thinking that the antibiotic was a waste on Sam. And while Brenda immediately denies it, she thinks it _was_. An absolute waste to spend it on some guy she doesn’t know, an outsider, because Kyle may die now because of it.

Just like everyone else Brenda loved.

Kyle develops a fever and his wound gets more and more worse. Infected. And the fact he’s going to die is more certain now. Brenda watches him struggle in his bed, and _hates_ so much.

It’s all Dean’s fault. Her mind latches on to. Dean’s and fucking Sam’s.

She marches up to Dean’s place and slams the door open and spits out. “I hope you’re fucking happy, Dean. Kyle is going to die now because of your little stunt.”

Jo shouts something but Brenda doesn’t hear it, hands fisted and face aflame with rage. She’s shouting and screaming and doesn’t quite hear what she’s saying except the rush of her blood and heartbeat and Kyle’s struggling breath.

_“—If you had been able to compartmentalise!—”_

_“—What, so that your little boy toy could live?—”_

Boy toy? Is he being for _real_ —

Jo’s sharp voice interrupts them and talks like Kyle could be saved. Brenda snarls at her and Jo says—“Just give him what you need.” Carelessly, like Brenda hadn’t thought about it.

“No harm in trying.” Jo adds. And Brenda fucking had _enough._

“You want me to let the Amoxiclav and Metro run out too?” She doesn’t want Kyle to die but she’s not _stupid_. There’s other people that’s gonna need them and they—want her to waste them on Kyle who’s already done for. _No harm in trying._ Do they even _hear_ themselves?

What the fuck? Who the fuck let them run? She slams the door on her out.

Jacob meets her when she ducks back into Kyle’s hut, wearing a grim face.

“He’s not going to get better is he?” Jacob asks her when she kneels beside Kyle, trying to do whatever she can to elevate his pain and make this any easier on him.

Brenda chooses not to answer which is an answer in its own and he says, “What about the antibiotic—we had one, didn’t we—”

“You mean the one that Dean used it up on his little brother?” The sharp words are out of her mouth before she registers. Brenda raises her head, angry and done and those were never a good combination for her. Jacob is staring down at her, like he can’t believe it. He will though. Just like everyone else.

The story passes around the whole compound by the time that Kyle is nearly—Brenda swallows the word, closing her eyes and squeezing Kyle’s hands. She can’t say it. Not now.

No one wants to believe it but all the evidence is spread out right there for them. Especially, after there’s no word from Dean when the funeral takes place.

Kyle dies that morning after, and Brenda’s there right beside him as he takes his last breath, struggling to the last minute. She bends her head down and sucks in her inner cheek and god, no matter how many times—it hurts every single damn time.

This time it digs a little harder, since it’s someone she _knows_.

They have a quick and swift funeral and she watches his body burn up with stinging eyes and an ache so big inside her chest, she can’t breathe. There’s whispers and demands about Dean but he’s already gone, taking away any doubts they may have had at what she said to them. She could hear Jo trying to calm them down and putting some bullshit into their heads about how Dean wasn’t—

Brenda ignores it all, dragging herself to her hut and flopping down on the bed. There’s a moment of silence, of everything sinking in before it crashes down and she’s sobbing and crying hysterically. Curling into her knees and thinking about every single memory she had with him and how—

_at least he didn’t die a walke_ r, she tells herself, _at least he didn’t die a walker._

(That one is always worse.)

When there’s a knock on her door, hesitant and quiet, Brenda gets up immediately and rubs at her face, despite how she desperately doesn’t want to because—there’s someone hurt and they need her.

She keeps on moving with that sharp, sharp thing piercing in her chest and pressing onto her lungs because if she stops, what’s left for all of these people.

It doesn’t get better as time passes—it never does—everywhere she looks there’s that memory of Kyle, her siblings, her parents and every fucking person she failed and she’s so, so tired.

“Thanks, Dr. Brenda!” Rob gives her a crooked smile when she finishes up his arm.

She gives him a flat stare in return and he cringes under it. Good. That should tell him not to mess around and get hurt in the first place and _joke_ about later. When Brenda turns to leave, she hears Rob and Jacob whisper to each other and curls her hands into fists when she catches her and Kyle’s names.

Things have been different since Dean has left and she wants to say better but—it hasn’t. Not really. Jo taken his place as the leader but the betrayal of Dean still lingers. And Dean’s always been good at giving orders and controlling the order here in the Camp, she reluctantly acknowledges through her bitter hate of him.

Ash’s arrival changes things. He stumbles into their camp with new ideas and changes. And it’s—getting better. Slowly.

Brenda almost forgets about Dean. (He’s never going to come back anyways.)

Then, she wakes up to noises and comes out from her hut to Dean fucking winchester and his brother standing there. She narrows her eyes.

“Traitor,” He is saying, raises his eyebrow. “For what? Saving my brother’s life.”

“For buying his life with Kyle’s.” Brenda bites back at him. It’s an sore wound that’s never going to go away. 

Things escalate, and everyone is shouting, pointing their guns at each other, ready to shot and then, Sam’s in front of his brother and lifting his shirt up to reveal—

A _bite_. A Walker bite that’s healed over. Brenda doesn’t register it first, stuck on the image of the teeth marks on his skin, eyes wide. She had seen that mark, too many times. More than she ever wanted to.

How—? Brenda never thought it was possible. Immunity. But it’s right there, in front of her eyes.

“Are you really immune?” She asks to him, later. Because she still can’t believe it despite everything as she draws out his blood.

This is the answer they’ve been looking for. All the _possibilities_ that his blood could give them—

“Yeah,” Sam confirms. And It takes effort for her hands not to shake. Her mind is racing. If they could find out what actually find out what exactly is making him immune—it would be the answer to _everything_.

Despite her effort, her hands slightly shake.

This could mean...the end of this apocalypse.

( _Freedom_.)


End file.
